


Leave

by eadunne2



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Denial of Feelings, Everyone plays music, Feelings, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Harvey boxing, Light Angst, M/M, Misunderstandings, Music, Porn with Feelings, Sex, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-08 05:47:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11640180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eadunne2/pseuds/eadunne2
Summary: Mike socks him in the jaw and reflexively, Harvey’s fist flies out, splitting Mike’s lip. “Fuck! Sorry.”“Get your hands up.”“Mike -”“Get your fucking hands up, Harvey!”He stares. “What the hell is wrong with you?”“Wrong with me? You’re the one who doesn’t give a shit until someone’s bleeding.”“What are you talking about?”Mike snaps. “Why would you give me a job, and a home, and a family, and then fucking decide you don’t care about me?”“Don’t care about you?” If Mike were wise he’d heed the warning in the quiet snarl of Harvey’s voice, but there’s a giant gap between intelligence and wisdom, and he hasn’t made that leap yet. “I risked everything for you!”“So you could avoid me?”“I’m not avoiding you!”“Is there a synonym you’d prefer? ‘Cause you sure don’t seem to want anything to do with me!”They’re close enough that Mike can see the twitch of Harvey’s jaw, even in the low light. “You don’t know shit about what I want,” he whispers.“Oh yeah? Why don’t you enlighten me.”





	Leave

**Author's Note:**

> Um, so @freebirdgalahad.tumblr.com messaged me with the sweetest note the other day, and got me digging through my half finished stuff, and this was there, waitin' around to be completed. I think I've posted outtakes from this on tumblr as one shots before, but here's the real deal. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy. :)

Mike has been thinking about leaving Pearson Hardman for two years, six months, and four days.

It took almost a year to believe this new life was real. Stability, a schedule, a regular paycheck for christ sake. Too good to be true. He kept waking in the night thinking, “What a beautiful dream.” 

The first blow came when Harvey “lent” him to Louis. Mike hadn't even done anything to deserve the slight, other than maintaining the affectionate volley of shit-giving that defined their relationship. At least with the “Loyalty” situation he’d actually done something to deserve Harvey’s ire. 

Mike kept the smile plastered on, but for the rest of the case he fought to suppress the insidious thought-spiral threatening to drown him. There were limits to Harvey’s affection. To his friendship. For a minute there, Mike thought they were Mike-and-Harvey. Specter-and-Ross. Maybe something like a family. While he’s grown tremendously as human being, he’s still Mike Ross: Brainiac Fuck Up Extraordinaire, and he lives by the lesson learned decades ago: ‘Leave them before they leave you.’ 

Besides. It's not like anyone's ever asked him to stay. 

He hasn't made the move yet, obviously, which is part of the problem. He fucking can't. Can't leave, or even put any real distance between them, no matter how much pain it would save him. Harvey makes it impossible, opening up little by little, giving over precious vulnerabilities when Mike's least expecting it. It's cumulative, over the years, and he's completely unsurprised to find he’s fallen in love with the man. Mike may be emotionally stunted, but even he’s not that dense. 

Some days are worse, his one foot out the door edging a little further forward - when Harvey pawned him off, or when he yells like Mike is his poorly trained puppy instead of a human being. On those days Mike remembers why he keeps his handful of remaining valuables tucked neatly in a dufflebag under the far side of his bed. But sometimes, Harvey bumps their shoulders together, or gets that pleased little smirk that says he knows Mike would rather spend his lunch break working in Harvey’s office more than doing just about anything else. 

Mike may be a shit lawyer, but he’s a great liar, a skill cultivated over decades. Harvey thinks he’s so original, but Mike’s been capitalizing on the “play the man” concept his whole life; It’s the ultimate survival skill. Harvey has no idea he’s tearing his associate to pieces. Mike isn’t resentful. He’s chosen this torture. This is the way he wants to go.

_“You think you’re not replaceable?”_

He knows he is. It’s the one constant in his life.

Donna’s holding the file over the edge of her desk, glaring at her computer screen like it’s offended her and Mike sighs at the blue cardstock. He doesn’t want to go. Harvey’s been ignoring him - won’t look him in the eye, keeps answering questions in monosyllables. 

“Michael, if you are not en route to that address in less than a minute I swear by all that is holy -”

“Ok, ok, ok.” He snatches the file, shoves it in his bag, and takes off towards the elevators. He doesn’t really want to know what she has in her arsenal against him. 

He’s familiar with the area, which serves only to add confusion to his exhaustion. It’s not in a particularly nice neighborhood, and Mike’s having a hard time imagining Harvey among the rusted fences and abandoned lots with cracks like lightning running through, but he bikes there anyway, quickly, like maybe he can pedal faster than the knowledge that there’s no forgetting. No going back. No room for an echo-empty heart. 

The stability Mike’s come to depend on has shifted in recent weeks. Somewhere along the way Mike must have said something, done something unforgivable, because between Harvey teasing Mike for pounding a Redbull in one gulp as a breakfast substitute, and dinnertime of that same day, something happened. And quite suddenly, they were no longer the dynamic duo. No more banter. No singing or quoting or rambling into the wee hours of the morning. Harvey makes sure to be gone by six every day and Mike… well, Mike is never anywhere, really. Not anymore. 

He gets his work done, and then he goes home and plays endless scales on the shitty Yamaha keyboard he’d found in his parents’ storage unit. Clementi - simple, scalar patterns for his brain to play with. Then Debussy, Maynard Ferguson covers, and Sinatra, Beethoven, arrangements of Coltrane, and Rachmaninov. Music the color of sweetly laid plans that no one expects to work out, but you can’t help make them anyway. 

He needs to get out.

Worn tires skid easily through gravel on the chalky pavement, and Mike stares up at the peeling facade. The sign is so rusted through he can barely tell it says ‘Gym’, and even then Mike’s not sure he believes the claim. After locking his bike to a guardrail he hopes will hold, he yanks the steel door open. 

It’s surprisingly light inside for the dark green paint on the cement walls, though it's muggy. The room smells like old building and cleaner, with tattered posters on the walls and cinder blocks holding planks of wood as shelving and benches. It's obvious there’s no hierarchy here - only work. He relaxes. 

There are a few guys working out on the equipment to one side, and a pair sparring in the raised ring, and still no sign of Harvey. Mike sticks out like a sore thumb, but he’s got a job to do so he gives a rueful grin to the guy at the counter, about to open his mouth when the dude says, “Lookin’ fa Harvey?” The guy’s Brooklyn accent is so thick here’s almost no ‘r’ in the name. 

“Yeah.” 

“You Mike?” Another bob of the head, surprised this time. 

“Good,” the guy says, and Mike thinks maybe this man was a dragon in another life. There’s not a single tell in his expression, but a sense of vast knowledge hangs on him like drips of blood from torn knuckles, unnerving and bright. “Over there.” Again, no ‘r’s, but he points to a small forest of punching bags swinging near an industrial fan. 

“Thanks.”

No one pays him any mind as he picks his way across the shadows of an old factory floor, and suddenly his fly-on-the-wall status becomes very useful. 

There are two guys on the bags and a few more talking near the wall, taping fingers, wrists, knuckles. They’re laughing and shoving when one of them yells, “Switch!” and two more men bound in to replace the exhausted ones. 

Harvey.

He’s wearing basketball shorts and no shirt, already glimmering with a sheen of sweat from earlier work - they all are, but as he settles into his stance there’s not an ounce of fatigue in his posture, not a tremble or a twitch. And then he starts to move. 

It's a drill of some kind, obviously, speed and consistency and the clock on the wall says 52 seconds but Mike feels like time has stopped altogether. 

Muscles stretch and flex across every plane of Harvey's back, waist tightening as he twists, and the sinew draping his shoulders draws tense with restraint immediately abandoned. There's a grace to the movement, like watching a sculptor at work, music in the way the light glances off caramel skin, poetry in the sweat carving paths along his spine. 

It's an inconvenient reveal at the worst of times, that this is what Harvey looks like under all those tailored layers. Mike doesn't want to know that his boss has freckles on his back, just a few, and a scar on his shoulder, surgery, Mike's guessing. It fucking hurts to know Harvey really is that beautiful, a song never intended for Mike to play. Plus, he's so turned on he'd be absolutely screwed it weren't for his bag draped across his chest. 

Scratch that, he's screwed anyway, because Shouty McGee in the corner calls “Switch” again and now Harvey notices his associate gaping. 

“Mike?” he pants. 

“Hey,” Mike mumbles. 

“What're you doing here?”

“I - uh…” _Just thinking about sinking my teeth into your pecs. Imagining what you'd feel like beneath my hands. Wondering if you'd let me eat you out until you begged to fuck me. _He extends the folder jerkily. “I can't submit the revisions without your signature.”__

____

__“How the hell did you find this place?” Harvey asks, taking the document and flipping it open._ _

__“Donna. And I used to live a few blocks over.”_ _

__“From here? Jesus, Mike. Give me a pen.”_ _

__“Thought we'd established my role as King of Questionable Choices.” It sounds melancholy as he hands over a ballpoint, but he'd meant it as a joke._ _

__“I don't know, I'd like to think you've made a few good ones over the past few years.” He's got this little smile tucked away at the corner of his mouth and Mike wants to kiss him so badly it feels like a sucker punch. He ends up grasping his stomach in response._ _

__“You ok?”_ _

__Mike attempts a nod. “Don't forget the duplicate.”_ _

__Watching half-naked Harvey flip through IPO documents with the same effortless sense of self he wears while clad in three piece suits is a mindfuck and a half. Also, Mike might be drooling. The fucking chest on this man._ _

__Harvey signs the second copy with a flourish, flips the file closed and holds it out. It takes Mike a solid sixty seconds to slip it into his bag but he gets there eventually._ _

__Amused, Harvey murmurs, “Gonna make it, Rookie?”_ _

__His mouth blurts, “You're fucking gorgeous. I'm gonna go now.”_ _

__He's several steps across the floor when Harvey says, “You don't have to.” It sounds dragged out of him, and Mike doesn't know whether to be relieved or offended at the gesture so he looks back over his shoulder, breath catching at the sight. Harvey's hair is falling messily over his brow, casting a shadow across whatever expression he’s settled on. Hoping the space will somehow mask the anguish in his voice, Mike forces himself to turn and make his way back towards the door. He really must be losing his touch._ _

__“You know I can’t stay.”_ _

__\--_ _

__“I don’t care how you got them to talk. What did they say?”_ _

____

Mike’s following Harvey by half a pace, trying to chug coffee without pouring it all over his shirt or the papers in his hand. “None of them reported harassment by anyone _currently_ on staff.”

Harvey, of course, notices the emphasis. “A previous manager?”

“Two of them,” Mike smiles.”

“We’ll need grounds to subpoena their records.”

Mike hands over the envelope. “Written depositions from the victims.”

“Their lawyers looked over these?”

“I did.”

“That’s not -”

“They waived the lawyer. On paper. Jesus, Harvey, I wasn’t born yesterday.”

“No, the day before,” he grumbles scanning the testimony, but Mike recognizes the approving quirk of his mouth. 

“Do I detect a ‘Good work, rookie?’ in there?”

“Anyone ever tell you you’re too needy?”

“Maybe if you’d -”

“Mike?”

“James?” 

On the sidewalk behind them, having just emerged from a shop, stands James Thomas Mead, senator’s son and Mike's ex-boyfriend. 

“How are you?” He looks good. Not as good as Harvey, but still easy on the eyes.

“Fine,” Mike smiles, immensely weirded out. “Great. You? And how're your parents?” 

“Good, were all good - shit man, it's so nice to see you.”

“Yeah.” The enthusiasm in Mike's voice might not have been quite as elevated, but James seems not to have noticed. 

“I see you're moving up in the world.” 

“Huh?” 

James gestures to his suit, which is when Mike remembers there's still a beleaguered Harvey beside him. “Oh! James, this is my boss, Harvey Specter. Harvey, James Mead.”

“Carlton Mead’s kid. I know who you are,” he replies over the blandest handshake Mike’s ever witnessed.

“Nice to meet you,” James says. “So you’re Mikey’s boss?”

“I am. How do you know him?”

“We used to date. A few years ago?”

Mike nods. Swallows hard. James isn’t a bad guy, but they were sleeping together because Mike was his dealer, Mead was loaded, and the sex was convenient. It was simple, surface, and not something he cares to return to. 

“Really.”

“Yeah. Good man you got working for you.”

“I’m aware.” The words should feel wonderful but the ice in Harvey’s tone isn’t particularly heartwarming. 

“Anyway.” Mead turns back to Mike. “If you ever want to grab a drink or something -”

“I -”

“He’s busy.”

Mike and Mead both turn to gape at Harvey. There’s no pretending - James didn’t say fuck all about a date or time, and in spite of their work schedule, Harvey can't actually expect either of them to believe Mike will be busy forever. 

“Harvey -”

“Nice meeting you Mead, but we’re late.” And then, as if bitch fits were a dime a dozen, he turns on his heel, taking off. 

“Sorry James. It was good to see you.”

“You too, man. Take it easy, yeah? Your boss seems like a real ball buster.”

Mike eyes the man in question, striding down the sidewalk. “Yeah. Among other things.” 

“Let’s go, rookie!” gets shouted from down the street and Mike excuses himself. It takes longer than it should to catch up because Harvey’s pace is even more aggressive than usual.

“Dude, what the fuck was that?” Harvey doesn’t look at him, but a muscle twitches in his jaw. “What’s your problem? You can’t just harass my friends because -”

“You and Mead are friends?” 

“Sure.”

“You friends with all your exes?”

“Some I guess, I don’t know, I haven’t seen James in years.” 

Either his boss has gone crazy or there's a hidden agenda, and honestly, chances are pretty evenly split. Maybe this is the beginning of the end. Maybe whatever’s eating Harvey will finally tear them apart, and even though Mike thought he’d been preparing effectively for the inevitable end, the very thought of it makes him sick.

Harvey’s still striding a pace ahead, lip tucked between his teeth in a very un-Harvey-like gesture of worry.

“What is this really about?”

“You making us late or your terrible choice in junkie boyfriends?” 

“Junkie - it was just weed,” Mike exclaims. “And it was years ago - Harvey stop!” He grabs his boss’s arm and wheels him around. 

“What?” Harvey bellows, so full of malice Mike falls back a pace, and maybe his expression knocks a clue into the Harvey’s head because he de-escalates, if only slightly. “You’re on the clock. We don’t have time for this shit.”

With a stream of hurried New Yorkers jostling around them, they stand face to face for the first time in weeks. Harvey shoves his hands in his pockets, almost vibrating out of the bespoke suit with irritation until Mike says softly enough that maybe it’ll be swallowed by the city, “Did I do something wrong?”

He’s not talking about James, and he’s pretty sure Harvey knows it because something in the air between them shifts and when Harvey steps forward he’s really looking at Mike, reading the lines of his employees face like a lost manuscript. It’s a connection that’s been so conspicuously absent Mike has to ignore it or lose his mind, though maybe there’s nothing left there to misplace. 

“No, Mike.” It’s gentle. Why does it hurt so badly? “You didn’t do anything wrong. You’re … I just… shit.” He rubs his eyes with the heel of one hand. “Look. I’m sorry, but I can’t - we can’t do this right now.” Mike’s never heard so many false starts out of the man. “We’re late.”

Mike hears, “We’re out of time.”

\--

Through absolute necessity, Mike ends up at Harvey's condo the next night. He hasn't been since whatever crawled up Harvey's ass gave up the ghost and left Mike with a pissy shell of a man that was never his to begin with. 

Their client was, as of two weeks prior, a shareholder and member of the board for TechConnect. Just before the company sold he doubled his shares, spending almost half a million, and mere hours later the market skyrocketed. He made back triple on his investment, but a few other board members are accusing him of insider trading under the guise of false claims - that he knew something they should've been privy to as well. 

There's no proof against their client, not concrete evidence anyway, but opposing counsel dislikes Harvey immensely, doesn't care much one way or the other about playing dirty, and unfortunately happens to be an extraordinary litigator. She's pushing for a trial. Needless to say, they have to find some evidence in support of their client. Just in case.

The deadline is coming up, so Mike rides back with Harvey around 8 pm. There's an extra suit at the office, and if it gets too bad at the condo he can always make some excuse about needing the firm library and sleep in the file room. 

“Can you send me video of the deposition?” he yawns, flopping on the couch and dragging the laptop out of his bag. 

"We've watched it a dozen times. 

"I know, but maybe there's something I missed.”

Per usual, his fingers itch at the sight of the piano snuggled into the corner of the living room. Mike's never seen it open, no sheet music, and he never asks because music is more intimate than sex and he can't afford to give over any more of himself, bare anymore of his soul, though he’s starving to know the shape and shade of Harvey’s.

“Just sent,” Harvey mutters to his laptop. 

Mike had changed into gym shorts and a tee when they’d arrived so he's physically, if not mentally, comfortable as he rolls gratefully down the endless trail of documents, receipts, emails, and leaves the deposition playing in his headphones while he works. This feels right. It doesn't hurt. 

Harvey's leaned all the way back in his chair, laptop balanced on one knee, fingertips of his right hand pressed to his mouth, and he stays like that for almost two hours, only moving to flick the cursor down or rap an uneven staccato into the poor keyboard. 

Mike's not finding a damn thing. They're out of their element lately, Harvey distancing every interaction and Mike closing off to preserve what little is left of himself. 

At two in the morning Harvey declares, “I'm gonna call the judge. Buy us some more time,” and with an absent wave of his hand, he disappears out onto the balcony. 

Mike glances at the piano. It's been over a week since he's had the chance to play. 

No. Bad idea. He flicks the video back to the start and presses play. 

The suit coat disappeared long ago, so his boss is pacing the balcony in a collar-loosened dress shirt, sleeves rolled haphazardly to his elbows, symbolic of his mental state. Broad shoulders shift in frustration as Harvey snaps something into the receiver, and Mike aches in a hundred ways - disappointment in himself, exhaustion, lust, anger. For a moment he sees that expanse of skin bare in his mind, slick gold, but he shakes his head. Not useful. 

Harvey settles forearms on the railing, facing out over the city, and Mike sighs. This call is going take awhile. 

Inevitably his eyes drift back to the keys. 

Is the glass soundproof?

“Harvey!” he shouts. “Hey! Yankees suck!” Not a flinch. 

Mike lip is already sore caught between his teeth. Harvey's going to treat him like trash anyway. What's another snide comment bouncing off the corners of his brain? He slips across the hardwood floor to perch on the bench, like maybe if he moves light enough Harvey won't notice the intrusion. 

Scale, arpeggio, the beginnings of the bassline of Feelin’ Good, D minor, like silk beneath his fingers.

He’d joked about it with Harvey, but he's not a bad singer, a soft baritone that reminds him of his father more than any physical feature he's grown into. There are dozens of versions of this song and he's loved many of them differently, but tonight he wants something liquid, flowing, notes brushing past one another instead of stacked in a heap so he lets his fingers wander absently through the progression. The B flat doesn't trip him up. He knows this piece better than his own heart. 

It's an extension of his freaky brain, perhaps. Pitch pattern, tonality, rhythmic motif, it links together to preserve an internal library of hundreds of pieces. His mind slides into the music and leaves him the fuck alone for once, drifting, soaring, featherlight bones on an updraft. 

The dynamic swells as he sidles into the third verse, dragonflies and sun until the line about sleeping in peace smacks him and his breath catches. A new dawn. A new day. “What a beautiful dream,” his treacherous brain supplies, but he continues out of obstinance more than anything else. 

A new life. Is that really what he wants?.

There's a noise behind him - Harvey, leaning on the wall with arms crossed. He looks strange, and mutters something that might be “Of course you do.”

Twenty minute ago Mike might've startled, but he's too exhausted now. “Sorry. Needed a break.”

“How long have you played?” He doesn't sound like he really wants to know, so Mike gives him a half assed answer. 

“A while.”

“I had no idea.”

“Yeah, well. I had no idea you boxed.”

Harvey smirks, dangerously close to the real version of himself instead of the synthetic puppet he’s been possessing lately, and it makes Mike shift forward into his response. “Doesn't come up often in our work environment.”

“Neither does piano.”

“We represented Steinway three months ago. And we talk about music all the time.”

“Not anymore,” Mike grumbles, turning away to fidget with a scalar pattern. 

“What?”

“It's not important.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Harvey snips, unnecessarily pissy. 

“I said ‘Not anymore!’,” Mike shouts, and a distant roll of thunder outside the window swells to meet his voice. “We don't talk about anything anymore.” Harvey looks genuinely surprised and for a brief moment Mike wonders if he’s misread the whole thing. “Look, forget about it. Let's get to work.”

“Mike,” Harvey says softly. 

“Did you not just hear what I said? Did the judge grant us a stay?”

With a sigh, Harvey settles on the arm of the couch. “A few days. If we can’t find something by then, we go to trial.”

“And?”

“You know the evidence as well as I do.”

“Yeah. It’s a tossup.” 

He’s about to head back to his laptop when Harvey says, “Play me something.”

In the crystalline hesitation blossoming between them, Mike weighs his options and consequences, held in place by Harvey’s gaze. 

Eh, what the hell. It's going to hurt forever anyway. 

He doesn’t actually remember the name of the piece, ironic as that is. It’s a song from decades ago, bluesy and aching, something his father used to play back when Mike was too small to see up to the keys, so he’d lie on the ground beneath the piano and listen to the waves overhead. It ripples from his fingers, nameless and exquisite, and he sighs into the deluge. 

Jazz. Another way the two of them are cut from the same cloth and Harvey will never know it. Mike’s grown up with this music, kept himself warm with the cloak of unpredictable key changes, impossible chord progressions, and solos pulled from centuries of history and the folds of someone’s magical brain. He couldn't tell Harvey, it’s too much and not enough at the same time that both their fathers were musical, that Mike knew Monk and Mingus and Davis and Fitzgerald and Hancock and Holiday before he and Harvey ever met, entire discographies and the timbre of voices shifting over years and careers. He didn’t learn to use a record player from some wanna-be TV show, but from the calloused weight of his father’s hand showing him how to set the needle. 

Mike knows all these things Harvey doesn’t, but he’s still surprised when there’s warmth on the bench next to him - Harvey, watching, eyes darker in the low light as he carelessly flits his fingers over a few keys in the octave above Mike’s right hand. Notes that fit.

“You -?”

Harvey nods. Echoes, “For a while.”

“Why don’t you ever…?”

“Play? I do. It’s just -”

“Personal. Yeah,” Mike breathes, and the frozen ache in his gut disappears into the melody between them, so abruptly he makes a little sound of surprise. Harvey appears not to have heard. 

It’s closer than they’ve been in weeks, months maybe, and the familiar scent of Harvey’s cologne and the heat of his body is overwhelming, but doesn’t stop Mike from leaning into him as the melodic line noodles it’s way upward. The bass sinks, heavy, down the opposite direction, but as the descent pulls him away, Harvey closes the space again, pressing their shoulders back together. Mike spends a whole verse staring at the elegant veins tracing the backs of tan hands, ‘til Harvey shifts and lamplight strike his face more directly. Mike startles up, breathless at how beautiful Harvey is with the curl of a blues scale wrapped around him, relaxed and ages younger, stripping propriety and self-preservation and finally, everything is just … open.

There’s no reason it should be this intimate - they’re both fully clothed, stone cold sober, and irritable, but Mike can barely catch his breath, thankful the notes have long since etched themselves into his fingerprints because he’s sure as hell not paying them any attention. 

Harvey has this appalling habit of tucking pleasant feelings into one corner of his mouth, and Mike wonders if he thinks he’s being stealthy, like he’s keeping a secret. That’s not the case at all - it’s like a fucking broadcast bragging, ‘look what I’ve got’, whatever it is that has him so fucking happy.

Maybe it’s the fact he might be a better pianist than Mike, keeping up with every syncopated chord change thrown at him all the way to the very last cadence, when Mike settles easily into the tonic triad and Harvey continues with a few last turns in the higher octaves, decadent and artful and absolutely unnecessary. 

“Show off,” Mike murmurs and Harvey chuckles.

“Don’t be jealous. Just ‘cause I’m better than you -”

“You are not.”

The quirk grows to a grin. “We’ll see about that.”

“Pistols at dawn,” Mike laughs.

“You challenging me to a duel?”

“I dunno, are you gonna wuss out? Wouldn’t wanna get blood on those Italian leather shoes.” They’re still close, he realizes, pressed together at the hip and turned to watch the other’s face.

“I’d never wear my Mezlan’s to a duel.”

“What about now?” If he can't make Harvey love him, maybe he can get the man to touch him. 

“What?” The silence deliberately laid after the word indicates Harvey might have idea where this is going but refuses to make the first move. 

Mike shrugs even though his heart is racing, asking without asking, a proposition via suggestion. “I wrestled in high school. And I'm not as puny as I look.” As the most deliberately casual afterthought ever uttered he adds, “Unless you think you can't take me.”

“Take you? I'd annihilate you.”

“So you say.”

“You saw me at the gym. You know I'm not fucking around.”

“You think I am?”

There are no clocks ticking to mark the silence. Harvey's blood’s too rich for analog. 

“Fine, but you got fair warning. When you can't walk tomorrow, that's on you.”

Mike wants to make him promise. “We’ll see about that old man.”

“I'm not old, you're a kid playing dress up.”

Mike pulls his shirt off. “I'm not dressed up now, am I?”

The light follows Harvey's adam's apple down and up again, then settles on the shine left on his bottom lip from swiping his tongue across it. 

This will probably backfire spectacularly but until then Mike's thrilled when Harvey stands and says, “Fine,” and disappears into the bedroom. He reemerges minutes later dressed in those goddamn silver shorts and Mike has to remember how to breathe. He disguises the buckling of his knees as stepping into the clear space between the kitchen and the couch. 

Harvey’s shoulders are broad, roped with muscle and Mike's eyes rake down and across. Glorious. He gulps. Harvey grins on his way to the bar. Payback’s a bitch. 

As he pours them each another two fingers of scotch, he murmurs, “Rules?”

Mike's voice doesn't quite work the first try but he gets there eventually. “Pinned three seconds. Shoulders and hips.”

“Best of three?”

“Sure.” His pulse is in his clavicle now, and behind his pelvis - heightened beyond his intention. “No face shots.”

“No,” Harvey agrees. “You’re much too pretty for that.”

Mike’s lungs collapse but he thinks he manages to keep it to himself. 

Harvey hands him the glass and goes to put something on the turntable, guitar and drum set, lively and raunchy, and it makes Mike stand up a little straighter, diffusing nerves and tension into excitement, and desire so strong it feels like a cramp. He drains the glass and sets it on the island in the kitchen, rolling out his shoulders, neck, wrists - tense from having spent the evening on the couch, and it feels like heaven to have the fibers of his muscles ease apart. 

There’s a weird sound in the song, almost like a groan, but when Mike turns back around Harvey’s assuming a fighting stance with his lower body, though his hand is clutching his chest strangely. 

“You ready to lose, boss?”

“First of all, let’s acknowledge that this bastardization of a fight is much closer to your sport than mine -”

“Making excuses already? 

“No excuses. I’m just reminding you -”

Mike lunges at him, swiping an ankle at the back of Harvey’s legs. With a surprisingly deft leap, he avoids the feint. “Really?”

“You talk too much.”

“That’s rich. You haven’t stopped talking since the day I met you.” Harvey slides to one side and gets Mike’s wrist in his hand, wrenching him around, pressing them together. 

Mike’s back is to Harvey’s chest so he can’t gauge the reaction, but it’s worth it for his own to be hidden. It takes everything he’s got to break away from the warm silk of Harvey’s torso, but he wriggles free and hops out of arm's reach. 

“Not bad, rookie.”

“Thanks,” he pants, lunging forward. It knocks Harvey back a few paces but doesn't go at all as planned because the older man catches Mike and whips him to the floor then drops on top, forearm across Mike’s chest and shins holding his legs against the hardwood floor. 

He could probably get away, but Mike finds himself paralyzed instead, heartbeat thumping with the bass drum.

The crow’s feet at the corners of Harvey's eyes are more obvious at this distance, but strangely, he also looks younger. This close, he can see that Harvey’s skin is velveteen, smell the base note of whatever cologne it is he’s always wearing, watch the beginnings of a sneaky smile from their very origins, right there in the corner of his mouth, and Mike won’t get to keep any of it. One dumb, sleep deprived joke, and it’s going to break him into a million pieces. 

Maybe it’ll hurt enough to give him the guts to leave. 

“Get off,” he mutters, shoving at Harvey, and the older man rolls off more gracefully than is really fair from a dude with a desk job.

“Ready to give up?”

“Not a chance, asshole.” 

“Someone’s pissy. ” 

Mike pretends like he doesn’t notice the hand Harvey’s offering to help him up, and scrambles to his feet on his own. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

Harvey scoffs and sets his feet. “You ready?”

Rolling his neck to the guitar solo, Mike takes a moment to appreciate the relief of focusing on something physical instead of the bullshit in his head. “Born ready.”

Harvey’s training is obvious, light on his toes with an eye for even the smallest movement from his opponent, but even the great Harvey Specter must have a weakness. Mike throws a few test punches, ducks to avoid the retaliation, and realizes Harvey’s trying not to hit him too hard. The older man also fights high, protecting his chest instead of his stomach. Harvey notices him staring

“What’s on your mind, kid?”

The affectionate moniker literally knocks the wind out of Mike, and the older man stills, concerned. 

“Oh no you don’t. Get those hands up.” He doesn’t want to talk. 

“Mike -”

“I was just thinking about what a bitch you were to James.”

Harvey scowls and shoulders Mike into the back of the couch. “He’s a piece of shit. You telling me you read the Times every goddamn day and still missed the headlines about him?”

“Didn’t miss ‘em. I just don’t care.”

“‘Cause he’s your fuckbuddy.”

“No, because he’s my ex. Jesus, Harvey, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were jealous.”

Harvey moves like lightning, grabbing the back of Mike’s neck and getting low enough to knock him to his knees. Mike grabs Harvey’s wrist and pushes back so he’s crouching with his boss behind him, then rolls Harvey off, reversing their positions. Once he gets his limbs around the older man, he leans back, tilting them both to the floor.

Mike doesn’t really feel his shoulders hit. He has to have absolute control of Harvey for the takedown to count, so he locks his ankles and wrists and tenses. The gesture tucks his face neatly into Harvey’s neck, but instead of weeping he grits his teeth and breathes deeply the smell of a man never meant for him. 

“Ok, ok, your point,” Harvey’s mumbles, and pushes quickly from Mike’s hold. Mike thinks he didn’t fight the takedown very vigorously, but he’ll take what he can get. “I’m not jealous,” he says.

Surprised they’re still stuck on this topic, Mike responds, “I know.”

“I just think he’s a pretentious piece of shit.”

“He is.”

Harvey blinks. “Then why were you fucking him?”

Like he cares. Bitterly, Mike spits, “‘Cause he had a huge cock and dank weed.”

Harvey makes a rough noise under his breath. “That’s your criteria?”

Mike shrugs. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”

“The fuck are you talking about?”

“The fuck are _you_ talking about?”

“Like every person in this goddamn city wouldn’t be jump fuck smartest guy they’ve ever met. And look at you. ‘Beggar’ my ass.”

The whole situation is just too ironic. “Let’s go,” Mike says, suddenly too tired even for banter. “Winner takes all.” It’s just an expression, but something darkens in Harvey’s eyes. 

“Has your criteria changed?”

“Are we still talking about this? Of course. I don’t smoke anymore,” and even though Harvey knows this for a fact, he nods with a soft and emphatic, “Good.” They begin again. 

There’s an intensity to the last round that hadn’t been present before. They’re both competitive, and it’s so late it feels like inhabiting an alternate universe. Mike kind of hopes he gets a good bruise out of this, or maybe a split lip, something real, visceral, to remind him that Harvey touched him before everything ends. 

It’s the last chapter in a poignant story, but it’s not like Mike thought this was going to end well. From the very beginning they’d been playing on borrowed time, and no one would mistake this for a romantic comedy. 

He thinks back to the day they met, back to that hotel, back to the way Harvey looked at him like he was something rare and magnificent. And working together - an unstoppable team, _the_ unstoppable team. 

And then, as suddenly as it began, Harvey shut down. What had he done, Mike wonders, to give the game away? Harvey’s not wrong for cutting him loose, but why?

The beginning of the end had been like any other day.

They’d been debriefing in Harvey’s office. Mainlining caffeine, bitching about Louis, throwing around a few Top Gun quotes, laughing too hard at a dirty joke Donna told through the intercom. Mike’s an inarguably fidgety worker, but Harvey hadn’t sent him away. 

He’d taken his feet off the coffee table before Harvey even finished clearing his throat. He pointedly had not stolen either of the doughnuts off the desk. He fucking _tried_ so goddamn hard to keep up appearances, and it didn’t even matter. 

None of it matters, and suddenly, he’s furious. The fatigued control, the bitter restraint, it all disappears in an instant. Mike attacks.

There’s not much finesse to his strategy, just speed and willpower, and Harvey has to work to block each blow.

“Shit, kid,” he grunts. Mike socks him in the jaw and reflexively, Harvey’s fist flies out, splitting Mike’s lip. “Fuck! Sorry.”

“Get your hands up.” 

“Mike -”

“Get your fucking hands up, Harvey!”

He stares. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Wrong with me? You’re the one who doesn’t give a shit until someone’s bleeding.”

“What are you talking about?”

Mike snaps. “Why would you give me a job, and a home, and a family, and then fucking decide you don’t care about me?”

“Don’t care about you?” If Mike were wise he’d heed the warning in the quiet snarl of Harvey’s voice, but there’s a giant gap between intelligence and wisdom, and he hasn’t made that leap yet. “I risked everything for you!”

“So you could avoid me?”

“I’m not avoiding you!”

“Is there a synonym you’d prefer? ‘Cause you sure don’t seem to want anything to do with me!”

They’re close enough that Mike can see the twitch of Harvey’s jaw, even in the low light. “You don’t know shit about what I want,” he whispers.

“Oh yeah? Why don’t you enlighten me.”

Harvey bites his own bottom lip, then leans in to do the same to Mike’s.

The kid cries out against the brush of teeth on the split skin, but Harvey immediately soothes it with the swipe of his tongue. They stumble over to the couch and Mike finds himself on his back, beneath his boss, his friend, his - no. There’s no use in entertaining fantasy, especially if they’re never going to see each other again. 

Reflexively, Mike rolls his hips up, and Harvey leans down, nipping up his neck, licking around the shell of his ear, then diving back down to kiss him again. It’s like the fight - energy in a continuous flow, hands everywhere, except this time their mouths are in on it too, and Harvey is as supremely talented with that as he is with everything else. 

Mike barely makes it ten minutes before he’s gasping, “Oh god, oh fuck Harvey, you need to fuck me.”

The older man makes a broken noise in the back of his throat and pulls back. 

“Are you sure? We don’t have to -” Mike grabs Harvey’s hand and curls it around the straining bulge in his shorts. Harvey shudders and nods, “Point taken,” then gets up to rummage in the drawer of the table by the couch. 

“Who keeps lube in their desk?” 

“People who fuck in their living room. Get your pants off.”

“You first, Heisenberg.”

“Really? I’m way better looking than White.”

“Bossier, too. You gonna take your pants off or what?”

Harvey leers, and slides his shorts off. Mike makes a noise which had every intention, but ultimately failed, to be any intelligible word.

“What was that?” Harvey grins.

The bottom half is arrestingly beautiful as the rest of him, and it’s a good thing Mike’s out of his mind with lust, and therefore on autopilot, because he doesn’t even have time to be self conscious as he shimmies out of his own shorts and sits up. Harvey’s grin falls, replaced by something much warmer in response to Mike’s reaction.

He crouches, and as he’s rolling the condom on, licks at the head of Mike’s cock, teasing and sweet. It’s unbearable.

“Oh my god, Harvey, hurry.” _Don’t change your mind. I’m losing mine._ Mike needs this to hurt, needs to feel it later, needs to know he hasn’t imagined it. Something for the road.

He manhandles Harvey onto the couch, and as he’s rising to his knees Harvey says, “What are you -”

“You’re taking too long,” Mike replies breathlessly, slicking them both up with what’s probably an unnecessary amount of lube and begins to sink down into Harvey’s cock.

It’s a slow and glorious ache, too much, not enough, and Harvey groans deep in his chest. “Christ kid, you’re so fucking tight. _Fuck._ ” For all the dirty talk, there’s a fondness Mike doesn’t want, so when he can sit somewhat comfortably, he shifts so his legs are draped over Harvey’s hips and they’re both leaned back on their elbows.

The pull in his glutes and abs feels incredible as Mike bounces on Harvey’s cock. He throws his head back to avoid the temptation to stare and wallows in the sensation of being split open, filled up, of knowing exactly where he is, and just how lost he’ll be. Harvey wraps his hands around Mike’s thighs to help push and pull him, and Mike’s halfway through thinking maybe he’ll get out of this in one piece when Harvey makes a frustrated noise and sits up so he can press their chests together. Ah, yes. There it goes - Mike’s composure - right out the window. 

He wraps his arm around Harvey’s neck and buries his face against the older man’s shoulder, a prayer and something to bite when he can’t bear it any longer. The change in position is nailing him right in the prostate, and he clings, hoping to last, but he never stood a chance, and when Harvey sucks a mark above his collarbone he cries - “Fuck, I’m gonna -”

Harvey grits, “About goddamn time,” and then Mike’s out of commission for a while. 

At some point in the future, Mike opens his eyes. Harvey’s propped above him, looking down. Sweat has caught a few strands of hair against his forehead, and he looks delightfully rumpled, and unnervingly closed off. 

When he realizes Mike is watching, he sits back abruptly, and pulls out, though he slows when Mike whimpers. He’s pulling his shorts back on and washing his hands in the kitchen sink before Mike can even figure out how to sit up. 

“We should get back to work.”

Breathless, Mike replies, “Sure.” Of course. He’d known this would happen. 

“I guess we can call it a draw,” Harvey teases lightly, and genius or not, it takes a whole minute for Mike to realize Harvey’s talking about their boxing match. 

Harvey goes to the bathroom. Mike heads out the door. 

Best of three. So the fuck counts as a tie? Idiot. Mike just lost everything. 

\--

“Puppy! Good morning. What’s up?”

“Hey Donna. Tell him I quit, would you?”

She doesn’t answer. He wasn’t expecting her to. 

\--

Day two out of work, and Mike still hasn’t made any decisions. He hasn’t slept either, rising before the sun and heading to the park where he and Harvey would sit and eat lunch sometimes, because he’s an idiot and a sucker, and hasn’t felt like figuring out how to sublet his apartment. 

Someone settles next to him on the bench, a little too close for strangers, and hands Mike a coffee. 

His jaw drops.

Harvey’s wearing a long black coat, grey scarf wrapped high on his neck. His hair is neatly swept back, but there are shadows beneath his eyes Mike’s never seen before. 

“What are you doing here?”

Harvey doesn’t look at him, just sips his own coffee and gazes out over the frosty morning. “My associate quit.”

“Ha,” Mike mutters into his coffee. “Wonder why.”

“Do you know,” and Harvey turns to him, finally, one elbow over the back of the bench. “I wondered, too? At first, I thought it was the whole sexual harassment thing, like you felt obligated to sleep with me because I was your boss.”

Appalled, Mike says, “Jesus, Harvey. Is that what it felt like? That I was _obligated_?”

“No. But I didn’t... I thought we -” He clears his throat and starts again. “Donna yelled at me.”

“What’d she say?”

“That I was moping, and then she said what you did - that I’d been avoiding you. You were right, by the way. What are you doing?”

“Putting this in my calendar,” Mike says, typing in his phone. “Harvey said I’m right. Hey!”

“Give me that. I’m being serious.” He clicks Mike’s phone closed and fidgets with it. “I ever tell you my dad was a musician?”

“Sax player, right?”

“Yeah, but we sang together sometimes. He liked Duke Ellington a lot. You were working in my office a few weeks ago, being your usual obnoxious self, and you started humming -”

“Don’t Get Around Much Anymore. I remember. I’m sorry. Did it make you miss him?”

Harvey shakes his head, weary and amused. “No. No, it just made it really fucking difficult to keep pretending I’m not in love with you.”

Mike spit takes a mouthful of steaming coffee. “You must’ve hit me harder than I thought. Did you just say -”

“I love you. Yeah.” 

“But...what?”

Finally, the crinkle-eyed smile has returned. “I’m sorry. I love you. Anything else you want to put in your calendar?”

The sun is finally emerging from behind skyscrapers, melting the frost, and though Mike doesn’t know it, turning his eyes from ice to aqua as he says with a shrug, “You could come home with me.”

\--

Harvey's perched on the barstool that serves as Mike’s piano bench, one long leg out to the side, foot tapping absently to the pulse of the music. He hasn't bothered dressing, so the only stitch of clothing on that incredible body are the boxers riding up muscular thighs as he sways to the melody. 

Morning light shines unabashedly through the rough cloth curtains, painting the caramel skin of Harvey's back gold and it's absolutely too much. Thankfully, the apartment is small so Mike only has to walk a few feet before he's pressing his lips to the base of Harvey's spine. Sun warmed silk beneath his mouth, Mike works his way up to Harvey's neck and bites down. There's a rough inhale, but the music doesn't falter. 

Harvey’s a more spectacular pianist than Mike had initially realized. The technique of this piece is complex, delicate intricacies at the softest dynamic, quick turns with surprising finger patterns. He's different, here, just as gorgeous as he is in a suit - maybe more in this setting, bathed in vulnerability. 

“Oh my god, I love you,” Mike breathes, absolutely unintentional, but Harvey sets the music free and turns around to beam at him. Long fingers pull Mike by the hips until they're pressed together and Harvey tugs him in for a kiss. 

Mike knows every freckle and scar he wants to taste, every sweet spot he’d like to check and see what noise Harvey makes under his teeth, his tongue, his nails. Without any resistance, the older man allows himself to be tugged back into the bedroom, chuckling as Mike shoves him down to bounce into the mattress, but he doesn’t say a word, just watches in awe when Mike lowers his body down to cover Harvey’s. 

Even lost in the sensation, even after everything Harvey said that morning, a bolt of fear lances through Mike’s joy, the recent memory of being so sure that this would never be his to keep, so sure that Harvey didn’t want him. 

Like he can hear Mike’s mind overthinking it, Harvey takes the kid’s face in his hand to look at him. “You ok?”

“Yeah? Yeah. Maybe I should just -”

But as he shifts, strong arms hold him in place and Harvey presses their mouths together again.

There are a million ways this could turn out, futures Mike’s never dared even to dream of, but they all start with the word Harvey utters next. 

“Stay.”


End file.
